Missouri tornado toll 132 as number missing falls

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JOPLIN: The death toll from one of the worst tornadoes ever to hit the United States rose to 132 Friday as crews continued to search the rubble for survivors and victims.

Five days after the massive tornado cut a miles-long (kilometers-long) path of destruction through this town of 50,000, officials have managed to pare down the list of the missing to 156 from 232.

But for those families who are still waiting for news, the wait has
agonizing and many have mounted their own searches.

Friday's steep decline in the number of missing persons came after the Missouri Department of Public Safety published a list of 232 persons unaccounted for, and discovered that 90 people on the list were in fact alive, said spokesman Seth Bundy.

Officials said many of the missing were likely to be among the dead, but a full accounting is impossible until next of kin are notified.


Still the process is an agonizingly slow one for families of the victims because they have not been allowed into the Joplin morgue to make identifications.

Officials have said visual identification isn't sufficiently accurate. But there could be a grimmer reason -- half of the bodies are reportedly too badly damaged to be identifiable.

The twister, a massive mile-wide funnel cloud, ranks as the single deadliest tornado to hit the United States since modern record keeping began in 1950. It tore apart everything it touched along a path four miles (six kilometers) long.

More than 8,000 structures in the midwestern town were damaged or destroyed when the twister packing winds over 200 miles (320 kilometers) an hour came roaring through with just a 24-minute warning.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has ordered the state's national guard to
remove the wasteland of debris left by the tornado, a mission he described as an "enormous task" but crucial for the city's recovery.

US President Barack Obama will participate in a community memorial service on Sunday and Nixon said Friday "we know his words will bring hope and healing." (AFP)